From the switchback above the valley, Pine Hollow sat along a thin creek like a tired animal, ribs showing through weathered boards and empty windows. Chimney smoke rose in weak strands. A wagon creaked over the main road. Somewhere a dog barked and then quit, as if even barking cost too much.
Elias kept his mule steady and his eyes forward. Seven years alone in the Medicine Bow high country had taught him that looking too long at anything could become a habit, and habits became attachments. Attachments were how you got broken.
His coat was patched at the elbows. His beard, wind-wild and snow-rough, held the scent of pine smoke. A leather Bible pressed against his ribs from the inside pocket, heavy as a stone. He’d carried it every day since the fever took his family, and he hadn’t opened it once.
Not because he’d forgotten the words.
Because he’d remembered them too well.
He turned the mule down the last stretch. The trail spilled him into town like a man returning from the dead.
Outside Harland’s General Store, he tied the mule and stepped to the hitching post with boots worn thin from years of rock and ice. The bell above the store door gave a small, bright sound when he entered.
Behind the counter, Mr. Harland looked up from a ledger and froze as if he’d seen a ghost walk in wearing a beard.
